over and over vorbei nicht vorbei: Participatory Music Theater Project on the Musical Heritage of Jewish Composer Kurt Weill
© Paula Court
© Paula Court
Ted Hearne (composition) and Daniel Fish (direction), together with 5 singers, a chamber orchestra and a youth choir, embark on a journey through the German and US-American collective memory, examining its influence on younger generations, and in the process they create the world premiere "over and over nicht vorbei". As in the U.S. musical series "Glee", the basic situation is a classroom where school students deal with group-focused enmity by singing, building a bridge between the material.
Archival materials and speeches of contemporary political debates, analog and digital, material, documents of US and German history are springboards for a sensual and playful music theater by and for young people.
The musical model and starting point for the content is the work of and fate of Kurt Weill; as a Jewish composer, he had to flee from National Socialist Germany and decisively influenced composers such as Ted Hearne with his politically motivated work which fluctuates between experimentation and entertainment. "over and over nicht vorbei" will have its world premiere in February 2024 as part of the Schall&Rausch festival at the Komische Oper Berlin.
The project will be supported by an educational program specially developed for young audiences, led by the music theater educators of the Komische Oper Berlin in cooperation with the political-historical educational experts of the Arolsen Archives.
Cooperation partner: Arolsen Archives
Funding country: Germany
Duration: 01.12.2022 until 31.12.2024